Page 52 of The Midnight Hour
“Can they even do that?” Sam demands, outraged, as Daniel does a three-point turn with a dozen armed police officers looking on, and then bumps across the median in the middle of the road to the other side. His mouth is drier than ever.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “They have, anyway.” He has no plan now, he realizes. They’re almost out of gas. There’s nothing but tiny towns, barely more than handfuls of houses, for at least fifty miles in just about any direction. The nearest city of any size is Springfield, from where they came, and it’s closer to the radiation. He knows they can try to make their way on smaller roads through Vermont, up to the border, but he’s wary of having to drive through so many small towns. It feels like an easy way to get carjacked, and that’s without considering the problem of gas.
He drives back down Route91 to the nearest exit, for Route10 to Northfield, Massachusetts, and turns off, then stops when he sees the barricade that has been erected at the narrowest part of the road—more oil drums and concrete blocks, even an old truck. He knows he won’t be able to shift any of it, and the dense trees on either side make it impossible to drive around. Ostensibly, he could leave the car here and they could walk, but Jenny’s not strong enough and without a car they might as well be dead. Besides, what would they be walking to? He doesn’t even know if there’s a gas station in Northfield, not that he’d find any gas there anyway.
Daniel reverses back onto the highway and keeps driving. He thinks they have just about enough gas to make it to the next exit, for Route10 south to Bernardston, even though he doesn’t want to go any further south. Near the exit, he sees a sign advertising a gas station, a campsite, even a Starbucks and a Dunkin’ Donuts. He turns off and comes to another barricade, this one justas impassable as the last. The good people of Bernardston have been efficient, he thinks, as well as determined. He wonders how many other barricades they’ll come across, against refugees from radiation that nobody wants to let in.
This time when he starts to reverse, the car sputters and then stops. They’re out of gas.
From the back, Jenny stirs. “Where am I?” she asks, her tone more curious than fretful. “Where are we going?”
They are, Daniel thinks, good questions, and he can’t answer them. He turns off the ignition and pockets the key as he tries to think. They’ll have to get out of the car; at least, he will have to get out of the car. It’s probably safer for Sam and Jenny to stay here and wait for him to return.
He swallows dryly at the thought. He really needs to drink some water.
“Okay,” he says at last. “Sam, you and Granny stay here. I’ll go find some gas, come back and fill up. Eventually we’ll find a way off the highway. They can’t have blockaded everywhere.”
“Why are they doing this?” Sam asks unhappily.
“Because they’re scared. And when people are scared, they circle the wagons, proverbially speaking.” He turns to his son, dredges up a reassuring smile. “It’s going to be okay. I got us a car before. I can get us gas. All you need to do is stay inside, windows rolled up, doors locked, okay? I’ll be back before daylight. I doubt anyone will even notice you’re here.”
Sam frowns, still unhappy. “And if they do?”
“It’s been twenty miles since we saw anyone,” Daniel reminds him. “No one’s coming, Sam. It’s going to be okay.” He reaches back and grasps his son’s hand, squeezes it. “It’s going to be okay,” he says again. Jenny, he sees, has fallen back asleep.
A few minutes later he is out of the car, his coat zipped up and his hat pulled down over his ears. It is breathtakingly cold, so his chest hurts every time he draws a breath. All around himthe forest looms, dark and bare. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts less than a mile from here, but it’s hard to believe.
He starts walking—head down, hands dug into the pockets of his coat, his boots crunching on the dried leaves, around the barricade and then back onto the road, which leads to an intersection. In the moonless darkness, he can’t see a thing in either direction, but a sign on the other side of the road tells him that Church Street is to the right. He turns right, toward the town, and keeps walking—past the white wooden Congregational church, its steeple piercing the night sky, and then another; and then, there it is, a gas station with a Dunkin’ Donuts.
The pumps, as expected, have been destroyed, no doubt in an effort to get at the gas, and the windows of the Dunkin’ Donuts are shattered, the store looted. He glances around the empty street, wondering where he should go. His first thought is to find an abandoned house with a car and siphon the gas out, but based on the barricade he has a feeling that there won’t be as many abandoned houses, and that more will be locked up tight and bristling with hostile residents.
He stands there for a few minutes deliberating what to do, his mind as slow as molasses, so every thought feels like something sliding inexorably away from him, gone before he can even begin to try to grasp it.
Then, in the distance, he sees a light flickering. A flashlight? A lantern? The glow is comforting, beckoning him forward, or maybe that’s just his weariness, his hopelessness, because he doesn’t know where to go on his own. He puts one foot in front of the other, walking down Church Street, toward the light.
As he comes closer, he sees that it is a lantern, hanging on the concrete porch of a small, weathered building that has a sign in its gravel parking lot—Faith Christian Church. It’s a tiny building that looks a little like a dry-cleaners, but as he comes forward someone comes out to stand on the porch—a middle-aged woman with woolly white hair and a surprisingly wide smile.
“Hello,” she says gently. “May I help you?” He stares at her dumbly. Her smile softens. “You’ve come a long way?”
“Yes.” His voice is a croak. “Canada, originally, and then from near Utica.”
She nods in understanding. “Would you like to come in?”
Daniel nods. He feels as if he is in a dream, and he doesn’t want to wake up. He follows her into the church, which is tiny—an entrance hall, a sanctuary that seats maybe twenty, and a room in the back. There’s no electricity, but another lantern inside lights the way.
“I have soup,” the woman tells him. “And coffee.”
He sees she has a two-ring propane stove that she fires up with calm efficiency.
“What…” He can’t make sense of this; it really does feel like a dream. “What are you doing here?”
She turns to him, still smiling. “Helping people. There’s quite a few who have come through, from the highway. A meal is the least I can offer. I’m afraid I haven’t got much more than that.” She nods toward a wooden chair by the door to the sanctuary. “Why don’t you take a load off?”
“All right.” He eases into the chair, amazed at how relaxed he already feels, simply from this single human interaction. “Has there been much violence here?” he asks.
“Some, but this is a small town and people are trying to stay civilized. They had a soup kitchen going, but then a gang from another town came and shut it all down. The military were here a few weeks, trying to organize things, but I haven’t seen them in a while. I heard talk that they’ve all headed out west.”
“Yes, so have I.” The smell of soup—canned tomato—wafts toward him, and his stomach grumbles. He’s barely eaten today, and he’s still so thirsty. “What about the radiation?”
